Chapter 2    Mori

The siege of Kyoto castle in Yamashiro province did not finish until 1931 Autumn.

The harvests in the first two years were normal. The income were sufficient to upgrade Owari into a large castle as well starting a castle in Mino (for YS) and Kii (for monks). Tea houses are built in Yamashiro and Ise (free small castles left from the siege).

Now it comes to the time to decide which direction should Oda expand. On the east, Imagawa has taken Shinano from Uesugi as he normally does. Concentrating all his military power in Shinano, Imagawa would usually aim for Mino and ignore Owari (only contacted by Migawa) accordig to past experience.

On the west, Mori has invaded Takeda. Our emissary who luckly escaped an assassination attempt revealed that Takeda got a rank 5 general and Mori has been pushed back to the old territory.

Given that Mino is the only eastern front and easy to defend compared to the west and we have got a rank 3 heir (Oda Nobuhiro), we will leave him in Mino with just enough troops to hold. Now draw all available troops onto the Mori's land of Harima!

1531 Winter

Field of Harima

The enemy, numbered 360, was faced with our 572.  Mori now concentrate all his army on a small hill at the center.

While our archers have surrounded the hill, Mori realized that he is in trouble and marched his archers down shooting at us (doesn't make too much sense). While all of our archers rain arrows on Mori's poor archers, the brave ashigarus march forward.

Mori's army responded by charging all his unit down from the hill. Every unit is roughly handled by one of our ashigarus. Hopefully the archers' fire will make them rout before we do.

Althought we lost quite a few ashigarus, Mori's taisho finally turned and ran. He was later intercepted by our raged ashigaru and slain on the battlefield.

We won the battle, as the numerical advantage told us at the very beginning. We successfully killed more than 60% of Mori's troops, which encourages the Oda clan to grab more of Mori's lands!

Now lord Mori is in big trouble. With his eastern front lost, three of his provinces are exposed to Oda, including his home base Mimasaka. This is only the second year of the game, and supposedly AI has not finished any "real" troop producing facilities in their non-home provinces (but of course they still can generate troops from nowhere). The most damage will be done by destorying Mimasaka. Here goes Oda Nobuhide with his 457 braves.

1532 Spring

The Daimyo Duel

Mori also knows that we would aim for its home base, and is drawing all neaby forces (383) to defend - including Mori Motonari the daimyo himself.

Mimasaka is famous for its moutains. The AI really loves the forests on the top of the corner mountain, ignoring a higher adjacent peak - and if AI doesn't take it, we will take it.

We got the higher grounds! As a result in the archer duels we receive slightly less casaulties than expert-level AI.  However, the downhill charge of our left flank Ashigarus are not doing well. They almost got wiped out and the enemy YSs are marching towards our archers!

Our left wing archers were not able to hold the grounds! In the last attemp to save the day, we quickly draw the complete east 2 ashigaru units to the west, flanking some of the hill climbing enemy to prevent the complete collapse of the west.  Here also goes the brave Nobuhide, but he ran too far and soon got stucked in a group of Mori ashigarus... Now Mori Motonari is laughing right in front of Oda Nobuhide!

However, our right flank Ashigarus rout Mori's remaining YA on their way up. As the peasants ran in front of us, they carried away their comrades surrounding Oda Nobuhide, as well as Mori Motonari!

Here comes Oda Nobuhide's chance to revenge. Our downhill charging ashigaru surrounds Mori Motonari, and Nobuhide's took his head! All of Mori's troops rout in no time! (Although one third of them have already advanced to our back).

Losing 67% of his men, Mori also gave up his life and his clan. But we also lost 48% of our troops and our strength to expand further in a short time.

The Mori clan is gone. Who will be the next?